Ping G30 Fairway Review

Modern fairways woods need to be distance clubs from the tee much as well as being second shot clubs on long holes. Manufacturers are responding to this demand and the Ping G30 fairway uses improvements in technology and manufacturing to create more distance.

The previous G25 fairway used 17-4 stainless steel, but the G30 has a 44% stronger Carpenter 475 steel face insert. This is the same thickness right across the face and helps to increase face deflection in order to increase ball speed.

Certainly in our testing the face did feel different with a very solid lower sound than the G25, although I preferred the little zing sound the previous model gave.

The most obvious visual change is the Turbulators on the crown of the club. The aim of these is to smooth the airflow over the crown of the club as the Wind Tunnel Testing video below this review shows.

These certainly do their job well as the Trackman testing in our Ping G30 driver review showed. However when we put the G25 and G30 fairway to the test, we found that the Turbulators did not increase the club head speed like they did with the driver and even Ping say that the head of the fairway is too small for them to have any real effect.

That leaves their visual benefit as an alignment aid, which may appeal to some, but not for us and therefore it may have been better to leave the Turbulators off the fairway and have a nice clean head or use the racing stripe lines of the i25 woods.

Better news is that the G30 fairway now comes with an adjustable hosel that the G25 did not have. This is the same Trajectory Tuning+ hosel as the driver that offers a maximum of +/- 1° change in loft with the option of +/- 0.6° as well. As we mentioned in the G30 driver review, this hosel is designed to be the same size and weight as a normal hosel so that the performance of the G range of fairways is maintained.

At address the hosel looks virtually the same as before and can help with the face angle at address, which in the standard setting does look quite closed compared to the lovely neutral position of the G25. If you have an aversion to this you can reduce the loft by 1° and you will open the face so that is closer to what the G25 was before.

However this more closed position could put some better players off using the G30, which is a shame as the taller, deeper head offers a lot more forgiveness than the Ping i25 fairway.

Whilst the G30 3-wood is larger in volume than the G25 by 2cc, the 5 and 7 woods are actually a little smaller in volume. For all you 4-wood lovers out there, the 16.5° option in the G25 range is no longer in the G30 line up, so the closest you can get is to de-loft the 5-wood by 1° to 17°.

Each of them comes with a blue TFC 419F shaft that lies 1° more upright than before in the neutral setting. It also has a higher balance point and complements the G30 fairway well.

There are also some lovely looking silver Tour 65 and Tour 85 shafts as stock options for your local friendly Ping fitter to test you out with.

Overall the performance of the G30 fairway was as good as the G25 and if you are looking for a quality adjustable fairway then the compact design of the Trajectory Tuning+ hosel makes it one of the best systems on the market as it does not compromise the looks or weight of the club.

If you are not fussed about adjusting your G fairway and already have a G25, then you may find that you prefer the address position, sound and feel of the model you already have and we would be with you there.